This is propbably the reason why. The Australian...

This is propbably the reason why. The Australian Article

INDUSTRIAL property owner Goodman Group has pre-sold a new development project in Sweden, signalling its entry into the Nordic market and reviving its European development activities.

The distribution centre in Sweden has been pre-leased to existing customer Staples, the world's largest office products company, and pre-sold to a Swedish investor for 140 million Swedish Kroner ($21.5m).

Goodman Group chief executive Greg Goodman told The Australian yesterday that the company had leasing inquiries for about 500,000sq m of space in Europe.

"We are working on a number of transactions in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Hungary," Mr Goodman said. Pre-commitment deals in Britain were the closest to finalisation.

"We are one of the largest logistics operators. We've got a number of options for these projects, including selling them to long-term investors or starting new funds of our own," Mr Goodman said.

"We've been working with a number of investors globally to create new opportunities and new funds for them. There is also interest in our existing products."

He did not think the group was rushing into new development. Goodman started on its $HK3 billion ($430m) Interlink logistics centre in Hong Kong last month and last week began work on a 75,000sq m distribution warehouse for Kmart in Victoria.

"We are not overdoing it," Mr Goodman said, noting that the group had no development starts six months ago.

"Hong Kong was our start. We would only start when we have in sight sources of capital and we demonstrated this in Hong Kong."

Fifty per cent of the space in the Interlink project has been pre-leased and optioned to two logistics multinationals.